Chilli Powder

From Recipes Wiki, the recipe book anyone can contribute to!

Chili powder is a spice mix Spice mixes are blended spices or herbs. When a certain combination of herbs or spices is called for in many different recipes (or in one recipe that is used frequently), it is convenient to blend these ingredients beforehand. Blends such as Chili powder, curry powder, herbes de Provence, garlic salt, and onion salt are traditionally sold pre-made by grocers, and sometimes baking blends such as pumpkin pie spice are also available. These spice mixes are also easily made by the home cook for later use.

The chile pepper (also chili or chilli; from Nahuatl chile via Spanish chile) is the fruit of the plant Capsicum, a relative of the tomato in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Cultivated since prehistoric times in Peru and Mexico, it was discovered in the Caribbean by Columbus and named a "pepper" because of its similarity with the Old World peppers of the Piper genus. Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the first chile peppers to Spain, and first wrote about their medicinal effects in 1494.